‘Commander!’ Jana screamed, as the rebel straddled her legs. She could feel his naked arse and worse on her thighs.
‘Help!’ she yelled, as he opened his mouth to let the knife drop. He caught the hilt in his hand as Jana continued to squirm and kick. ‘Get off me, you bastard!’
Jana screwed her eyes shut as the bastard thrust his hips forward to lurch over her body. She flexed every muscle in her torso to withstand the force and weight of his body. But it never came.
It started raining instead: a quick passing shower.
Jana opened one eye. The rebel and what was left of his head lay sprawled on the path.
The Commander loomed over her instead. ‘Dr Rossi, you okay?’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said, accepting the hand up. ‘Your timing, though impeccable, could have been fa…faster.’ Jana started shaking, with rage - or something.
She looked down and noticed her T-shirt was completely ripped apart and covered in wet stuff, as was her now bare chest and stomach.
‘Here,’ Gideon said, unbuckling and handing over her flak-vest. ‘Give me your shirt.’
Jana just stood there frowning, the vest dangling in her hand, so Gideon took charge and removed the ruined shirt. ‘Help me out here, Doc,’ she urged. ‘You can freak out later.’
‘I’m not freaking out,’ Jana declared.
‘You would if you could see yourself,’ Gideon said, re-buckling her vest on Dr Rossi. It was way too big but better than nothing. Gideon used the back of the now useless T-shirt to wipe the rebel’s blood and brains off the good doctor’s face.
‘Okay. Running now,’ Gideon said. She clasped her charge by the wrist and all but dragged her down the path. After about ten paces, Dr Rossi got into the swing of things and they ran flat out for the beach.
Gideon flicked her throat mike. ‘Redbacks, report.’
‘Team Two on the beach. Boats ready,’ Triko said. ‘There’s a lot of someones heading our way.’
‘It’s me, Marco; plus nine hostages.’
‘Coop and Pete; ditto, plus sixteen.’
‘Finch; en route with ten.’
Gideon, making the most of the last of the vegetation, skidded to her knees in the cold sand at the end of the path. Jana followed suit.
‘The PO and I will be right with you. We’re 20 west of your possie,’ Gideon said, spotting the gathering at the water’s edge to their left. She then checked the coast further west, to her right.
‘What on earth is a PO?’ Jana asked. ‘And what did you say your name was?’
‘You: Prime Objective. Me: Bryn Gideon.’
The lagoon swelled languidly to the dark horizon. It was, like the beach, oddly unoccupied by either rebel foe or friendly squad of lunatics. Thirty-five metres along the sand to her right a small promontory obscured the view of the dock area, though not the telltale smoky evidence of the damage that was still being wrought there. While it was logical that the bulk of the action was concentrated inland, it wasn’t right that the beachfront was so deserted.
Gideon turned to her charge, ‘Get ready, Doc. When I say run, make like Cathy Freeman for those boats.’ She pulled a second pistol from the holster at her back, said ‘Run, now’ and leapt dramatically out onto the beach, guns up, facing west. ‘Redbacks! Cover,’ she requested, as Dr Rossi did exactly as she was told, this time without a word.
Gideon backed up the beach after her, all the while expecting a surprise attack. It never came.
‘Stop mucking around Bryn,’ Wade said, popping up beside her, ‘and get in the boat.’
‘All present and accounted for,’ Cooper confirmed.
Gideon shrugged and let herself fall back into the inflatable. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here then.’
Four Zodiacs towing four inflatables pulled away from shore and headed southeast, across the lagoon and out to sea, to a rendezvous with the Australian submarine that Jana Rossi hadn’t seen earlier.
Commander Bryn Gideon and her Redbacks left Laui Island as quietly as they’d arrived, but with 36 extra people and no casualties on their side.
Chapter Five
Wellington, New Zealand:
Tuesday 7.15 pm
Aaron Danby fiddled with the coins in his pocket. There were few things that annoyed him more than having to wait around for self-important people to get their own shit together.
Christ! He was the Australian Foreign Minister. He was sitting between the New Zealand PM and her Foreign Minister, and some other fairly significant people from around the western Pacific. Yet here they were, waiting for a bloody low-level CIA spook to take a call from home, before he could finish his redundant briefing.
Around about the fifteenth minute of these official talks on what could, should and would be done to secure the release of the hostages, his PA Mick had stuck his head around the door and nodded at him. Danby assumed that had meant the retrieval team had started retrieving.
Ten minutes later the American had been beeped. He left the room like his duds were on fire.
And now here they all were - actual important people - making small talk.
‘You wouldn’t credit this would you,’ David Bailey, his Kiwi counterpart whispered. ‘What do you reckon the odds are of having an international crisis only a week after taking this portfolio?’
Danby turned to Bailey, a wiry little man who looked not unlike a bantam rooster. ‘Welcome to the Foreign Minister’s club,’ he smiled, ‘where shit happens daily.’
Bailey gave a snort of laughter. ‘I suppose I should be grateful I’m not in the middle of organising a major international meeting like you are, Aaron.’
Danby shrugged. ‘Another bonus of our club, David, is that ‘we’ don’t have to organise anything anymore. The SETSA meeting is being tooled to perfection by an entire city full of bureaucrats who I’m sure are thrilled to have something different to do with their time. We just have to meet and talk, front up and negotiate, turn up and argue.’
Bailey smiled. ‘What on earth do you suppose that American spy is up to?’
‘No good, no doubt,’ Danby said, acknowledging Mick who this time had entered the room without his poker face. ‘But it looks like my only source of reliable intel may have news.’
Mick crouched down between the two ministers. ‘I’ve worked out the difference between terrorists and rebels,’ he said.
Knowing how much his friend loved to preface something relevant, intriguing or even vitally important with a choice bit of trivia, or a throwback to a previous conversation, Danby raised an eyebrow.
‘Terrorists blow things up and give you the finger. Rebels blow things up and ask for a negotiator.’
Bailey chuckled, while Danby waited for the inevitable.
‘You know that proverbial shit?’ Mick continued.
‘Aha,’ Danby acknowledged nervously.
‘Well, it’s hit the fan. Big time. But,’ Mick was grinning now, ‘it’s neither our shit, nor our fan.’
‘Translation?’ Danby requested quietly.
‘They’re all out, and safe, and on their way here.’
David Bailey’s eyes widened with surprise. Aaron Danby sat up, ready to make an announcement.
‘Aaron wait,’ Mick said, also placing a calming hand on Bailey’s arm.
‘What?’
‘Let’s wait to see what that Yank - oh here he is - has to say about his countrymen gate-crashing our party, and turning a clean operation into a loud and destructive balls-up.’ Mick was clearly thrilled.
‘You’re still smiling, Mick,’ Danby prompted.
‘From which they came away completely empty-handed and allegedly down three men.’
Toyko, Japan:
Tuesday 4.15 pm
Hiroyuki Kaga could not believe what he was hearing. He stood his ground and stared at the intruder.
‘I am waiting,’ the tall bald man said.
‘You barbarian! You think you can talk to me this way?’ Hiroyuki had, until that m
oment, been civil to the bear of a man who stood uninvited before him. ‘You must leave now.’
‘I will leave when it is done.’
‘It will not be done,’ Hiroyuki stated. ‘And you must be a mad man. Yes?’
‘That is quite possible, sir. But still I wait. On you and your decision.’
Hiroyuki frowned. He much preferred his first impression: that this gaijin had mistaken him for someone else, that he’d come to the wrong door. Even when the stranger had pushed his way inside, to prowl the space he shared only with Kaisha, Hiroyuki still believed the man was in error. He had, after all, been accusing him of things he had not done, would never do. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Yes, Kaga-san. I know exactly who you are,’ the man said, bowing slightly.
‘You show respect, though what you say is foolish.’
‘That too is true. But at least I give you a choice.’
‘It seems we do not share the same definition of that word.’ Hiroyuki was worried now. The gaijin was in the right place - for him. And his purpose was more than a threat to unveil a lie as truth. He had declared his intention to fabricate a reason for an honourable man to take a certain course of action.
‘I will not do this,’ Hiroyuki declared. ‘No one would believe that of me.’
‘I am not here to argue with you, sir. This is simple. Do as I ask, or your honour will be as nothing. Your colleagues and all your work will be harmed by the scandal, regardless of your decision. But if you choose to force my hand, your family will be shamed by your death at the hands of another; and then again, by the murder of your son.’
‘My son?’ Hiroyuki felt his soul wrenched from his body. ‘What kind of man are you that would threaten a four-year-old child?’
‘It is you I am threatening, Kaga-san,’ the man said softly, lifting Hiroyuki’s katana from its stand. He bowed respectfully over it then offered the ancient sword, with both hands, to the only man who should ever draw it. ‘And, as I say, I give you a choice: a warrior’s death or an ignoble end.’
Hiroyuki Kaga reached for the heirloom that had given faithful service to three Tokugawa shoguns, and proclaimed, ‘But I could kill you first.’
Dargo flexed both wrists to unsheathe his blades. ‘You could try Kaga-san. But even if you were to defeat me, I am not alone in this. Others would follow, and they would not care as much for your honour as I do.’
Chapter Six
Somewhere in the Pacific
Tuesday 11 pm
At just under 78 metres long and not quite eight wide, the high-tech Collins Class submarine designated HMAS Harris, was running at a depth of 40 metres on a south-west bearing to New Zealand.
Gideon’s team and the conference delegates had more than doubled the number of people on board, but in three hours not one of the ex-hostages had complained about their close confines. In fact, as far as Jana Rossi and her companions were concerned, HMAS Harris was paradise below the high seas. Best of all, it was packed with Australians, although that sentiment had more to do with the circulating rumours, than a collective enthusiasm for being sealed in a large metal tube with 42 Aussie sailors.
Despite their rescuers’ best efforts to keep the finer points of the operation quiet, most delegates had figured out that blowing things up had not been part of the plan. This deduction was reinforced by talk, overheard on the Harris, that it had in fact been uninvited US Navy SEALS who’d caused most of the noise, destruction and mayhem on Laui Island.
Divided into two groups, but not confined to them, the delegates had been assigned space in two of the boat’s three mess areas. While free to move about, most were far more interested in eating a hearty meal and comparing notes on their incarceration and liberation.
Despite guessing just how close to disaster their rescue had come, their morale was understandably high, although they had been warned that ‘high’ in their case had a double meaning and therefore a double edge. The Chief of the Boat had already explained that the sheer elation at being free could be followed by an emotional and physical crash of equal intensity. He’d said counselling was promised but not until after their official debriefing.
Jana, while as elated and talkative as the rest, had not told anyone about being attacked by the rebel; nor, obviously, about how the man had been stopped.
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat each time she was assailed by a mental flash of being so near damage and death; but she nonetheless hoped her expression remained neutral. Given their own preoccupations, it was unlikely the other delegates would even notice hers, which was good, because hers were strangely disjointed. The repetitive recall of the assault was violence itself. It had its own particular sense and smell: cold hard sand, and damp vegetation with a metallic tang. Oddly however, while the attack was vivid with detail, being saved in so timely and definitive a manner kept playing more like a movie cut-away.
There was no question that Commander Gideon had killed a man to protect her, to save her. And while Jana didn’t doubt she could do likewise, to save herself or another, there was still no escaping the fact that just over three hours ago a man had died so that she wouldn’t.
But, as her eyes had been shut at the moment of his death, she couldn’t reconcile the man who’d been attacking her, with the corpse that was probably still lying exactly where they’d left it. Though not quite sure why - and before being debriefed by anyone official - Jana wanted to talk the moment over with Commander Gideon, whom she hadn’t sighted since boarding the Harris.
In the meantime, it was evident she wasn’t the only ex-hostage trying to avoid the delegate they’d been forced to spend the last four days with. For example the leggy Kiwi Shirley Moore, who’d driven Sally Tan to distraction with unrelenting hysteria, was now enjoying the manly ministrations of Alan Wagner. Their location, on the other side of the mess, pleased Jana and Sally no end as they’d already agreed that the handsome yobbo and the gorgeous bimbo were a blonde joke waiting to happen.
‘Pity we can’t shut them up as well,’ Sally observed, as everyone in the mess had to endure Alan’s insightful opinion of women in uniform.
‘I’m all for it,’ he was saying, ‘especially if they’re half out of it, and in a Playboy centrefold.’
‘Careful, Alan,’ one of the two American delegates advised. ‘I’d wager Dr Smith - you know, that woman in the uniform with the nice guns who helped rescue us - would eat you for breakfast.’
‘Colin mate,’ Alan sneered, ‘I’ll wager - and you can fire me from a torpedo tube if I’m wrong - but I bet you that that chick was nothing more than a medic.’
‘I thought her name was Jones. Captain Jones,’ said Hilary Bennet from Tourism Victoria.
‘Alan,’ Jana said, ‘I think you’ll find that the Commander was in charge of our rescue.’
‘I don’t think she’s a soldier at all,’ the Queensland tourism rep pronounced. ‘I reckon she’s a spy. I think they were all spies.’
‘I’m with you John,’ said Mary Copes, the Hawaiian. ‘I heard one of the officers on this vessel call her Agent-something.’
An attention drawing tap-tap on the hatchway had the desired effect. Jana was delighted to see one of the so-called Redbacks - the young one who’d been in her boat; but he wasn’t exactly smiling.
‘In order to kybosh any further rumour and slander, I will confirm that the ungrateful prick with the naked soldier fetish,’ Coop said, staring at Alan, ‘is kinda right with his ‘doctor’ comment.’
‘I knew it,’ Alan stated, completely missing the insult.
‘Yeah,’ Cooper nodded. ‘Smith - or Jones - is not even a medic. She’s a Doctor of History.’
‘Oh man, Alan,’ Colin Davies observed. ‘You are in for it.’
‘Too right,’ Cooper agreed. ‘I recommend a forward tube, mate, and I bloody hope you can swim.’
Everyone in the mess, except Alan and Kiwi Shirley, laughed, or tried not to.
‘And right now, our squad leader and
mission commander,’ Cooper enunciated, ‘needs to speak to all of you in turn before we reach Wellington. She, and Agent Brand from ASIS, have asked that you present yourselves in pairs; that is, with the same person you were locked up with on Laui. And if someone could make a list of how that was, it’d make the process faster.’
‘I can do that,’ Jana offered.
‘Actually, you’re up first Dr Rossi,’ Cooper said, leaning down. ‘Who were you with?’
‘The ungrateful prick,’ Jana smiled.
‘Oh.’
‘He says his name is Alan Wagner.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘And he claims he ‘knows’ people.’
Cooper grinned. ‘You’d be wanting to help me and the boss load that tube later then.’
‘Oh yes, please,’ Jana said.
‘I can make the list for you,’ Sally Tan offered.
‘Thank you,’ Cooper said, then straightened up. ‘Hey, Shark Bait! Front and centre.’
After leading them through several hatchways, Cooper opened a door to a space furnished with a table, chairs and bookshelves, but he ushered only Alan inside.
‘Agent Brand will be right here Mr Wagner. Or whoever you are,’ he said, closing the door on the journalist just as he began demanding ‘what the hell’ the soldier meant by that.
‘I totally approve, but what’s going on?’ Jana began.
‘You obviously do know people, Dr Rossi. You get a private pre-debriefing debrief.’ Cooper led the way to the cabin marked Commanding Officer. He knocked, opened the door and then left her to it.
Jana stepped into the relative spaciousness of the skipper’s cabin but was surprised to find that the submarine’s stocky, balding and white-uniformed Commander McClure, who had welcomed them all on board just off Laui Island, was not there.
Instead she was confronted with the blue-jeaned backside of an obviously tall person in the midst of tying a shoelace, while talking to someone else.
Except there was no one else. Jana cleared her throat.
The lithe but well-muscled person snapped to attention and blinked. ‘Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.’
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